


silence

by SummerEagle



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Death, Drug Use, pleas e don t hurt me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:56:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4733516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerEagle/pseuds/SummerEagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>silence<br/>hear that?<br/>sounds look like pictures, strewn on the wall</p>
<p>Aftermath of Episode 4, assuming Max makes it out safely. Probably going to be messed up after Episode 5 comes out. Max and Joyce talk about Chloe.</p>
<p>credit goes to kunaike for picture inspiration!</p>
<p>http://kunaike.tumblr.com/post/128298601227/can-u-imagine-how-much-it-would-destroy-joice-if ((link to the picture))</p>
            </blockquote>





	silence

Joyce stormed into the hospital with an enraged yet confused expression, fist still clenched around her opened flip phone. The faint smell of antiseptic drifted around her as she reached the front desk. The room was blank, white, and empty of any waiting patients. Joyce took no notice as she reached the clerk’s desk, pocketing her phone just to slam her hands on the counter for added effect.  
The clerk stared at Joyce with an unreadable look, and asked, “May I help you?”  
“My… my daughter’s friend. She’s currently held in this hospital. Max Caulfield. I need to see her. I… I received a text on my phone just a bit ago, and her mom wanted me to check on her since she wasn’t getting her messages-” Joyce started, fumbling over her words as thoughts tumbled over in her head. The clerk was already typing at her computer.  
The hospital worker, blonde with brown eyes, looked up from her cheap plastic nails at the keyboard to say, “All clear. You’re listed as one of the emergency contacts. She’s in room 413.”  
Joyce sighed in lightheaded relief as she turned on her heel to march through the emergency room doors, the next few minutes a blur as she searched for Max’s room. Too many thoughts ran through her head, so she focused on her current goal and hummed an old lullaby - one she sang to Chloe. She stopped humming after she remembered that. She tuned back in when she found her hand resting on the doorknob to Max’s room. She inhaled slowly, shakily, and steeled her nerves as she twisted it open. The door swung open to reveal a certain freckled, brown-haired girl eating her breakfast with incredible fervor. Max looked up as if she were caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, then relaxed her muscles. She tensed again as she took in Joyce’s expression and body language.  
Joyce had closed the door and sat down at the chair next to Max’s bed, mind drifting and reigned back in by the sight of Max completely whole. Paranoid, shaking, and unable to drink her orange juice without the risk of spilling it, but whole. Joyce reached for Max as if to test if she was real, and Max set her fork down to take Joyce’s hand. They sat in silence for several moments, until Joyce was unable to hold back the tears she’d been fighting since she heard the news.  
Max squeezed Joyce’s hand as she fought for words, tears spilling over her own cheeks. Max had been revisiting every horrible memory she could remember, unable to sleep out of fear of seeing his face again. Of seeing her fall again. Of remembering Chloe’s voice, her smell, her clothes littering the floor of her bedroom, and how they were probably picking up the pieces Chloe had so abruptly dropped. Had been forced to drop. Max would kill Jefferson if she saw him again, she was sure of it.  
“Max… Maxine, dear, you’re squeezing the life out of my hand,” Joyce’s gentle warning intervened into her thoughts, and she focused her gaze upon Joyce. Her smudged makeup she hadn’t removed from the day before, her attempted smile, her work outfit crumpled from sleeping - or probably passing out - in it. Max eased her grip on Joyce’s hand, but kept it firm enough to tether her to current time. If anyone needed her right now, it was Joyce.  
“Right. Sorry. Hi, Joyce. How are you feeling?” Max asked, voice raspy from crying and disuse. She imagined the feeling of duct tape over her lips, a sudden, confusing thought in her mind. She tried to catch the memory, but it fled from her as soon as it came. Joyce ran her thumb over the back of Max’s hand as she stared down at it, slowly shaking her head. She cleared her throat as she searched for a response.  
“I’ve seen bright days, and I’ve seen dark days, but I never… never thought it would come down to this. Not again,” Joyce’s reply sounded as if it was well thought out, but her unfocused eyes said otherwise. Max said nothing, only squeezing Joyce’s hand a little harder.  
A tether to keep both of us in the present, Max thought. If only Chloe were here…  
“...Max, honey, I know you’re feeling just as bad as I am, but I need to say some things. To get them off my mind. You know how it is; I’m sure you’ve had to do this, too,” Joyce started, her only cue to continue being a quick nod of Max’s head. Joyce sucked in a deep breath as she straightened her back, as if she were about to start a business presentation.  
“I was hoping that when you came back, everything would go back to normal,” She continued, holding up a hand as Max started to intervene. “Hold on, sweetie, I’m just getting started. I was hoping that, and I… I was hoping you and Chloe would go back to being best friends. She wasn’t the same after William… passed on, and she definitely wasn’t the same after that Rachel disappeared. You coming back after all that time seemed like it would fix her… well, her attitude about life. Then all these crazy things started happening in Arcadia Bay, and I guess… I guess I was wrong, honey. I just don’t know what to do.”  
Max nodded in agreement with Joyce, and she started speaking quicker, as if she didn’t say it then, she’d never get it out. Maybe it was true. She added, “I just wish there was something I could’ve done. I feel like… maybe if I had reminded her I love her that morning - oh don’t you give me that look, Max, I’ll listen when you speak, too - or if I had… if I had given her a hug, or something, she’d still be here, and we’d only be worrying over what you two want for breakfast. No hospital food, no fancy heart machines, nothin’.”  
Max waited for her turn to speak. When Joyce motioned that it was Max’s turn with a little flick of her hand, she took a moment to collect her thoughts. To think of what to say. Like a little options menu had popped up in her head, and now she had to choose the best path for the moment. Max envisioned it and clicked on what best suited her current emotions, and the words flowed.  
“Everything has consequences, Joyce,” she started. “If I could rewind time to see what I could’ve done to prevent it, you know I would. But I can’t.” She grimaced as the words struck a little too close to home. In her last moments before she woke up dumped in the Blackwell parking lot, she had tried to rewind. Whatever strange fog had overcome her - no, Jefferson drugged her, she knew it - hadn’t let her get her warning in. Like that horrible, horrible day on the roof, she had to continue on from that point, like getting teleported out of the boss room without getting to collect the loot. Joyce looked at her expectantly, and Max was reminded to continue.  
“I wish with all my heart that she could just throw open the door and scare us both into heart attacks, but... “ Max trailed off as her throat suddenly felt too dry to continue. She squeezed Joyce’s hand to get the point across, and Joyce nodded sympathetically. Joyce looked away to hide the tears welling in her eyes as she kept nodding. She closed her eyes and bit her lip as the gathered tears dripped down her cheeks, like Chloe’s death had just registered in her brain and now she was trying to deal with it. Max grimaced - she was a horrible sympathy crier.  
“I loved her with all of my heart. Memories of William and her spunky little attitude were what kept me going. I… I don’t know what I’ll do, Max, I really don’t. David is locking himself in the garage everyday. It’s his own little way of dealing with grief. At night, we just lay there. Normally Chloe would be playing music to help her sleep, or knocking things around to keep her mind active. You know how she is. It’s silent, Max, it’s silent a-and I…” Joyce trailed off, voice choked as she managed her last sentence.  
“It’s silent, Max. Now, what am I supposed to do with silence?” She looked back at Max as if Max could solve her problems. Her haunted, blue eyes rimmed with red kept Max’s gaze locked in place. Max’s constantly thinking mind drifted to a halt as she struggled with her words, and she shook her head. Tears dripped onto the bedsheet, and silence overtook them.  
What am I supposed to do with silence? Max asked herself as she turned to look out the window. A blue butterfly fluttered into the sunrise, but Max didn’t have her camera ready to take a picture.


End file.
